At age fifty-four, Derek suffered a stroke that left him temporarily unable to speak. A month later his speech returned, but he experienced the speech of others as "mumbling". Was Derek partially deaf? No: doctors discovered that he failed to hear only abstract words (such as idea or freedom). But Derek's reading comprehension and definition of abstract words was perfect; it was just hearing them that was impossible for him. Dr. Richard Restak employs fascinating cases such as this to explore the concept of the modular brain, a new frontier of the science of the mind. Derek's case and others like it suggest that spoken and written comprehension occur in separate areas of the brain; that the brain is not centrally organized as previously thought but, rather, different parts of the brain control different abilities, and these parts (or modules) operate independently. As Dr. Restak explains, this renders untenable the traditional distinction between mind and brain embodied in the two often competing disciplines of psychiatry and neurology. While most of us think of ourselves as having unified minds and personalities, important aspects of ourselves may be altered or disappear completely as a result of brain damage. What's more, all of the expressions of the mind - the exercise of free will, memory, knowledge, consciousness, identity, and selfhood - are now recognized as dependent on the brain. Compelling case studies from his own clinical practice and research enliven Dr. Restak's explanation of how neuroscience is proposing answers to our questions about identity and consciousness, the same questions that philosophers have been asking for centuries.

The book explores two fundamental aspects of the human mind and their relation to one another. The first is the way that information is put to use in the mind. When we are doing a mental arithmetic problem, for example, how do we bring the relevant bits of information to mind and hold them there while carrying out the series of calculations? This is working memory, the subject of an enormous research literature in psychology, neuroscience, and a great many other disciplines. Characterizing the working memory process is now a major part of efforts to understand the human mind. How we characterize this process depends of course on how we characterize the human mind as a whole. In particular, is the mind made up of a number of distinct units, each carrying out a specialized function? There is considerable reason to say that it is, and this modular view of the mind has become prominent in a great deal of academic work, notably in cognitive neuroscience, with important implications for our understanding of how working memory works. But these implications have received surprisingly little consideration to this point. The aim of the book is to explore this relation between working memory and modularity, first in general terms and then using a specific modular view of the mind – the Modular Cognition Framework. The ideas are illustrated and further developed through an application to language and especially second language acquisition and use.

The present work is an extension of my doctoral thesis done at Stanford in the early 1970s. In one clear sense it responds to the call for consilience by Edward O. Wilson. I agree with Wilson that there is a pressing need in the sciences today for the unification of the social with the natural sciences. I consider the present work to proceed from the perspective of behavioral ecology, specifically a subfield which I choose to call interpersonal behavioral ecology th Ecology, as a general field, has emerged in the last quarter of the 20 century as a major theme of concern as we have become increasingly aware that we must preserve the planet whose limited resources we share with all other earthly creatures. Interpersonal behavioral ecology, however, focuses not on the physical environment, but upon our social environment. It concerns our interpersonal behavioral interactions at all levels, from simple dyadic one-to-one personal interactions to our larger, even global, social, economic, and political interactions. Interpersonal behavioral ecology, as I see it, then, is concerned with our behavior toward each other, from the most obvious behaviors of war between nations, to excessive competition, exploitation, crime, abuse, and even to the ways in which we interact with each other as individuals in the family, in our social lives, in the workplace, and in the marketplace.

Neural grafting, virtual reality, gene therapy, psychotropic drugs ... As startling new treatments emerge for disorders of the brain, new concerns are arising along with them. In the first book to examine the implications of the full range of revolutionary interventions now possible in the human brain, Robert H. Blank warns that while these new techniques may promise medical wonders, they also raise profound political questions. Our rapidly unfolding knowledge about the brain and the accompanying applications have three main policy dimensions: funding research initiatives, controlling individual use, and assessing social consequences. But underlying these aspects, Blank argues, are more disturbing issues that pose fundamental challenges to our conceptions of equality, autonomy, freedom, responsibility, and human nature itself. Brain Policy makes the key facts from the technical literature readily accessible to social scientists and general readers and points out the implications for our society. Blank first explains the structure and function of the nervous system and current theories of brain operation; he then assesses the uses and potential abuses of various intervention techniques. He identifies the public policy issues raised by discoveries in the neurosciences and calls for intensified scrutiny of the advantages and disadvantages of new technologies. Warning that the risks and dangers of the dramatic developments in neuroscience are potentially large, Blank offers a means of understanding these scientific advances and the philosophical and political issues they entail. This book will be of interest to social scientists, policy analysts, policy makers, bioethicists, scientists who want to see the bigger picture, and the informed reader with an interest in the implications of neuroscience for themselves and society.

The way you perceive the world, plan, make decisions and communicate your thoughts and feelings depends on the function and hierarchical arrangement of cortical modules. The ability to both provide adaptive responses to our ever-changing environment and to pursue a useful role in society is the most important problem faced by present day neuroscientists. In essence, the workings of cortical modules define the nature of our soul, making each of us who we are. This book provides a breath-taking view of different perspectives by world renowned authorities as to the workings of these cortical modules both in the normal state and in mental disorders.

Because of the ease with which we perceive, many people see perception as something that "just happens." However, even seemingly simple perceptual experiences involve complex underlying mechanisms, which are often hidden from our conscious experience. These mechanisms are being investigated by researchers and theorists in fields such as psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, computer science, and philosophy. A few examples of the questions posed by these investigations are, What do infants perceive? How does perception develop? What do perceptual disorders reveal about normal functioning? How can information from one sense, such as hearing, be affected by information from another sense, such as vision? How is the information from all of our senses combined to result in our perception of a coherent environment? What are some practical outcomes of basic research in perception? These are just a few of the questions this encyclopedia will consider, as it presents a comprehensive overview of the field of perception for students, researchers, and professionals in psychology, the cognitive sciences, neuroscience, and related medical disciplines such as neurology and ophthalmology.

This is the first volume of a projected three-volume set on the subject of innateness. The extent to which the mind is innate is one of the central questions in the human sciences, with important implications for many surrounding debates. By bringing together the top nativist scholars in philosophy, psychology, and allied disciplines these volumes provide a comprehensive assessment of nativist thought and a definitive reference point for future nativist inquiry. The Innate Mind: Structure and Content, concerns the fundamental architecture of the mind, addressing such question as: What capacities, processes, representations, biases, and connections are innate? How do these innate elements feed into a story about the development of our mature cognitive capacities, and which of them are shared with other members of the animal kingdom? The editors have provided an introduction giving some of the background to debates about innateness and introducing each of the subsequent essays, as well as a consolidated bibliography that will be a valuable reference resource for all those interested in this area. The volume will be of great importance to all researchers and students interested in the fundamental nature and powers of the human mind. Together, the three volumes in the series will provide the most intensive and richly cross-disciplinary investigation of nativism ever undertaken. They point the way toward a synthesis of nativist work that promises to provide a new understanding of our minds and their place in the natural order.

“What should I do?,” “How should I deal with this?,” “How should I behave?,” “How should I act?” we ask ourselves daily. But, this is only the first part of the sentence, while the full sentence is “What should I do … to achieve such and such?”, for example to complete an assigned task, to do well before my boss or a client, to be pleased with myself, to carry out my plans, to make money in the stock market, to pass an exam, to complete an application, etc. These and similar questions that people ask, consciously or not, openly or not, are decisions. What skills must we master, especially when there is a need to make not only elementary decisions, but also decisions that affect the existence, health, and even lives of people? First, Laszlo Zsolnai writes that we should acquire the skill of gaining knowledge. Only then will we stand a chance of reacting to things that are improbable today, but could become a fact tomorrow. Also essential is the skill of designing, i.e., preparing actions conceptually in order to make decisions before irreversible changes occur. Finally, it is essential to master the skill of multidimensional judgment within the space defined by effectiveness, efficiency, and ethics. This is Zsolnai’s attempt to build a model of making ethical decisions both effectively and efficiently. Therefore, the model is much broader than purely an analytical framework would be. It must tell us how to act rather than limit us to reflection on actions already performed; it must combine decision and praxiological analysis of human conduct. The proposed model enlarges the scope of the debate and suggests new avenues of both rational and responsible decision making. This is an original statement of the crossover of policy and morality.

The political and policy implications of recent developments in neuroscience, including new techniques in imaging and neurogenetics. New findings in neuroscience have given us unprecedented knowledge about the workings of the brain. Innovative research--much of it based on neuroimaging results--suggests not only treatments for neural disorders but also the possibility of increasingly precise and effective ways to predict, modify, and control behavior. In this book, Robert Blank examines the complex ethical and policy issues raised by our new capabilities of intervention in the brain. After surveying current knowledge about the brain and describing a wide range of experimental and clinical interventions--from behavior-modifying drugs to neural implants to virtual reality--Blank discusses the political and philosophical implications of these scientific advances. If human individuality is simply a product of a network of manipulable nerve cell connections, and if aggressive behavior is a treatable biochemical condition, what happens to our conceptions of individual responsibility, autonomy, and free will? In light of new neuroscientific possibilities, Blank considers such topics as informed consent, addiction, criminal justice, racism, commercial and military applications of neuroscience research, new ways to define death, and political ideology and partisanship. Our political and social institutions have not kept pace with the rapid advances in neuroscience. This book shows why the political issues surrounding the application of this new research should be debated before interventions in the brain become routine.

Descartes boldly claimed: "I think, therefore I am." But one might well ask: Why do we think? How? When and why did our human ancestors develop language and culture? In other words, what makes the human mind human? Evolution of Mind, Brain, and Culture offers a comprehensive and scientific investigation of these perennial questions. Fourteen essays bring together the work of archaeologists, cultural and physical anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers, geneticists, a neuroscientist, and an environmental scientist to explore the evolution of the human mind, the brain, and the human capacity for culture. The volume represents and critically engages major theoretical approaches, including Donald's stage theory, Mithen's cathedral model, Tomasello's joint intentionality, and Boyd and Richerson's modeling of the evolution of culture in relation to climate change. No recent publication combines this breadth of evidential and theoretical perspective. The essays range in topic from the macroscopic (the evolution of social cooperation) to the microscopic (examining genetic data to infer evolutions in brain structure and function), and from the ancient (paleoanthropological reconstructions of hominin cognitive abilities) to the modern (including modern hominin's similarities to our primate cousins). Considered together, these essays constitute a fascinating, detailed look at what makes us human. PMIRC, volume 5